This and that Kane closes in on 400 Gagner nets hatty

[yave1964]

Patrick Kane seems to be getting better with age. Last night he stole the puck just inside the blueline and fired it past a stunned Korpisalo for the eventual GWG in Chicago's latest win. In spite of the inferior talent around him he has 31 points (3rd best in the NHL) and 3 goals in his last 3 games, now sitting at 399 for his career. The certain first ballot hall of famer is showing absolutely zero sign of decline.

 

  Strangest hat trick of the year will almost certainly belong to Sam Gagner who nailed a hatty in last nights 5-2 win over the fading Preds. Gagner had zero goals in this first thirteen games this season and overall had exactly one goal in his previous thirty six games combined. If you had placed odds on Gagner having a hatty they would have been roughly the same odds as me going on a date with Heather Locklear. I guess he was just pacing himself.

 

Dallas has forgotten how to defend, forget that they are only giving up 2 or 3 goals a game, that is the product of brilliant play by Khudobin and less about the blueline. They are regularly giving up an insane amount of shots, good quality chances too not just low pct. shots from outside. With Carolina/Tampa/Florida/Chicago ahead of them and Columbus more or less right with them it could be a very long short season for the Stars.

 

  

[Math]

15 minutes ago, yave1964 said:

Dallas has forgotten how to defend, forget that they are only giving up 2 or 3 goals a game, that is the product of brilliant play by Khudobin and less about the blueline. They are regularly giving up an insane amount of shots, good quality chances too not just low pct. shots from outside. With Carolina/Tampa/Florida/Chicago ahead of them and Columbus more or less right with them it could be a very long short season for the Stars.

 

I'd say they have forgotten how to play. Firing the coach is the last thing you wanna do, I honestly think Bowness is a good and competent guy and I always defended him last season even when they lost 9 out of 10 just before the Covid break. But after the disgraceful collapse of yesterday, that's where we're at. Injuries are not an excuse, the Stars were capable to win in the past in that context. The coach has done everything he could, changing his lines, shuffling things but with few to almost no results. Heiskanen is the shadow of himself, all leaders are transparent while the young guns regress. The message has to change, however I don't think Nill will do anything. I feel bad for the goalies that are doing an excellent job but the field players always let them down. It's up to the coach to prepare his team well and correct errors, but let's face it: it's a major fail right now. The season is short, they have 1 game every 2 days, they could easily be definitely out of the playoffs picture by the end of next week.

 

Good point is: if the trend continues, Heiskanen will become very cheap by the end of the year for his new contract.